The Lioness and the Live Wire
by Goldenheart of RiverClan
Summary: The 74th Hunger Games were not the first to take Panem by storm, showcasing the bonds between tributes that cross the boundaries of districts and transcend the fear of death. There have been other alliances in other Games that have done the same, but in many ways, such an honor belongs to the duo of the 51st Hunger Games, forever remembered as the Lioness and the Live Wire.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Notes**: This is a project I came up with a few months ago while working on my other story, _The Underdogs_ (formerly known as _Pass Slowly_, formerly known as _Midnight Hands_, formerly known as _No Greater Love_, and I'm still not sure I've found the right title). In the writing of the abovementioned story, I managed to grow attached to my two favorite canon characters, Wiress and Beetee. In fact, I grew so fond of them that I decided to tweak the canon of Catching Fire a little bit so that Wiress ended up surviving the events of the revolution, and she and Beetee played a large role in the main characters' story. The only problem with this was that I was focusing a little too much on them and not enough on the OCs I actually wanted to write about in the first place, so I figured if I wanted to write about these characters, I could at least do it when Wiress was, you know, actually _alive_ and devote a separate story to them to get it out of my system.

Thing is, I wanted to write about Wiress's Games because that's when I imagine her story really starting, but Wiress is a complex character who thinks on a different level than everyone else, and I didn't know if I could pull off a story from her point of view. I could have remedied the issue by writing it from Beetee's point of view, but I also wanted to be _in_ the action, not watching it from afar. So I compromised and created yet another OC to give myself (and the audience) some distance from a character like Wiress and provide another perspective on what's happening, this time in the form of an ally she had in her Games: Twelve-year-old Aslan Klein of District 5. Hence, the story is written in her first-person point of view, so we'll be seeing some of her life as well as Wiress's. I like it; I think it gives another layer of depth to the story and provides some of the backstory to _The Underdogs_, explaining why Wiress and Beetee are the way they are from the main characters' point of view.

**One last disclaimer**: I borrowed a few aspects of this story from _Breathe_ by NutsAndVolts (with permission!), perhaps the longest and most elaborate Wiress/Beetee story I've read to date, and I guess I should credit her here. By the way, you should check it out.

* * *

_**The Lioness and the Live Wire**_

_An account of the events of the 51__st__ Hunger Games by someone who did not win._

It's reaping day in District 5, and I am awoken from a surprisingly sound sleep at six in the morning by the ripping screams coming from the trundle bed to my left.

My alarm goes off just as I begin twisting around in the covers, trying to find a way out, and all the commotion in the room sets Evangeline off on a mad barking streak from her bed in the corner. Above the chaos, I hear my name being shouted.

"Aslan! Aslan!"

"Feivel," I say in a relatively calm voice as I finally shed my swaddling bedcovers and get down onto the trundle, kneeling by my best friend amidst a dissonant chorus of screaming and beeping and barking. "Feivel, wake up. I'm here."

At the sound of my voice, Feivel opens his eyes and sits bolt upright with my arms wrapped around him and his face in my shoulder before I can register what's going on.

"Was it a nightmare?" I ask in his ear, and the fabric of my pajamas rubs against my shoulder as he nods.

"It was you," he slurs. "You were reaped."

"But I wasn't. It was just a dream." With kid gloves, I put my hands over his ears and pull him away from my shoulder so that I am looking straight into his eyes, all shiny with tears and red-rimmed against his dark blue irises. "I'm here, and I'm okay. See?"

Feivel sniffles as Evangeline, now more concerned than panicked, climbs onto the trundle, and I take the opportunity to let her lick the tears from his face while I get up to shut off that infernal alarm clock. All is silent again in my room, cool and clean and bathed in early morning light that filters gray through my lacey curtains.

"Aslan, what time is the reaping again?"

"Ten," I say. "Do you want to go back to sleep? You've got a little while."

"Sure, if I can."

"You can have my bed. I'm not going to be back in it."

Feivel nods, knowing that I mean it; once I'm up in the morning, there's no chance of me going back to sleep, and this goes doubly so for reaping day. He climbs onto my softer, bigger bed and wraps himself up in the blankets, and Evangeline, ever the movie-perfect canine companion, sidles up to him and settles there. I only stay in there long enough to pick out some clothes and shoes, and as I prepare to head out, I take a moment to stand in the open doorway and observe my dog and my best friend curled up together in blissful safety before I turn the knob and noiselessly pull the door shut.

On my walk to the bathroom, I pass by my brother Thomas's bedroom door and catch the distinct noises of bedsprings rattling, covers whooshing, and a human voice—his own—forming words I can't pick out. I know what this usually means, but don't care to think of it, and I pointedly ignore it as I continue down the hall and into the bathroom to take a hot shower—not a lot of kids outside the Capitol can say that—and get dressed.

The clothes I put on are not reaping clothes, but a blue T-shirt and gray knit shorts and my sturdiest pair of tennis shoes. Walking clothes. All I have to do is throw them on and pull my strawberry blonde hair back into a sopping wet ponytail before heading downstairs to fill a gunnysack with apples, oranges, rice, sugar, bottled milk, canned vegetables—all the usual staples, plus a new plastic bottle of chocolate syrup as a bonus.

I leave as silently as I can so as not to disturb my sleeping family—not even Mother is up yet—and walk through the town square, past the Justice Building where two people my age or older will be saying their final goodbyes to their families in a matter of hours; past the stage where my mother will be reading the Treaty of Treason at ten; past the chrome-and-glass laboratories that design and create the muttations that will doubtless appear in the arena in a week; and into the part of the district with the nuclear and electrical plants that will supply the Gamemakers with the power needed to make all this happen. Soon, I reach the neighborhoods on this side of the district, the ones where the wooden houses are in need of repair and not a soul is stirring, the adults taking advantage of their day off and the children paralyzed with fear in their beds.

With my hair still damp and my clothes sticking to my body from the overcast humidity, I knock on the old wooden door of the house of Mr. and Mrs. Maloney. Even though I have done this many times before, I'm always a little surprised when they answer the door within ten seconds of me knocking, mainly because this is a day off and they have no reason for the fear of reaping day to keep them up.

"Aslan, come in, come in," Mrs. Maloney says, smiling when she sees me standing with the sack of food in my hand, right on time as usual. "Good to see you, as always."

"Good to see you, too, Mum." Although the Maloneys are not in any way related to me, I am so close to them through their son that they insist on me calling them Mum and Pa, just as Feivel does. They've always said that it's good practice for when they actually become my mum and pa as soon as Feivel and I get married. Funny thing is, they think they're joking, but when I say it, I'm serious as a heart attack behind the goofy smile and the good-natured elbow in Feivel's direction.

"Is that for us?" asks Mr. Maloney, even though he knows full well that it is, just as it has been every week for the past six years.

"Yeah." I raise the gunnysack high enough to set it down on their kitchen table, which groans in protest under its weight.

"I swear, Aslan, how do you manage to carry all that?" Mr. Maloney winks and smiles. "Let me see those muscles."

This is another part of our weekly ritual, a relic from when I was seven and tried to show my big, strong, spinach-and-broccoli-fed muscles to anyone who would stand still long enough. Over the years, I have actually developed some through fist-fighting and arm-wrestling and sack-carrying, and it shows when I flex my left arm in the tone and toughness of my bicep.

"I got you all the usual stuff," I say as I unload the contents of the sack onto the table. "Fruit, vegetables, salt, sugar, milk, canned goods, and finally,"—I take out the grand prize of chocolate syrup and present it to them with mock ceremony—"this."

"Feivel loves this stuff," Mrs. Maloney says, and I laugh.

"He's the reason we never have any, so I figured I may as well give some to you."

I stay and talk to them for about half an hour before excusing myself to go home and prepare for today, asking them, "When should I bring Feivel home?"

"After your choir rehearsal is okay," says Mrs. Maloney.

"Duly noted."

"Good luck at the reaping today, Aslan," Mr. Maloney calls from the table. "I know it's hard for you, being the first…"

"I'm pretty sure I'll be okay." I smile, not mentioning Feivel's earlier nightmare. I don't need to stay for another hour dissecting this with them and risk being late for the reaping. "I'd wish you the same, but there's really no reason to, is there?"

Mrs. Maloney's warm smile vanishes, and for a split second, the wrinkles on her forehead and by her mouth stand out to make her look ten years older than she really is. "Two years," she mutters. "Just this and another year of safety. I don't know what we'd do without your family. He'd have to take out tesserae left and right, and…" She chokes up and has to pause to wipe the tears from her eyes. It scares me to see her like this, bad enough that I almost start to cry, too. I always thought the possibility of Feivel being reaped was the furthest thing from her mind, especially since he's only ten years old and not yet eligible. I guess I was wrong. "I just…I was always so _worried_."

"It doesn't bear thinking about," I assure her. "He's safe. As long as I'm around, I promise you, he's safe."

I give them each a hug goodbye and start off on my long walk back to my own house.

* * *

It's past eight-thirty by the time I get back home, where things have begun to come alive. I walk in through the door to see my father sitting at the table in a striped shirt and shiny leather shoes and white underwear (no pants, as of yet), slurping cereal and reading a Capitol newspaper with a worried set to his face. I hear Mother's high heels clicking around upstairs as she goes about getting ready for her duties at the reaping. Feivel is having his breakfast of toast and chocolate milk in the living room because he hates the sound of my dad eating, and I see Evangeline's disembodied tail thumping against the ground with the rest of her hidden by the sofa. Thomas is nowhere to be found.

"Your dog needs to go outside," Dad says as I shut the door behind me, then resumes slurp-slurp-smacking his cereal.

"You didn't let her out?"

Instead of answering my question, Dad simply laughs. "Oh, I know where you've been, all right. Your accent's coming out again."

"Yes, yes, yes, thank you." I can distinctly hear Feivel and his parents' strong accent—the accent that belongs to much of District 5's lower class, actually—in my speech now that Dad's pointed it out. It usually reaches its peak after I've been interacting with Feivel's family, or when I'm in a state of heightened emotion, but due to prolonged exposure from Feivel and at school, it's there pretty much all the time. "Evangeline, sweetie, come outside and go potty."

Evangeline's collar jingles as she gets up from behind the couch to lead me to the back door. Her legendary golden retriever's tail is doing ninety a minute, threatening to knock decorative glassware and framed photographs off the hallway tables until I open the door and follow her outside. The first place she heads, however, is not to the center of the lawn, but rather to the white fence that separates our yard from that of our assistant. Still wagging, she aligns her nose with the hole in the fence and takes a good, long sniff.

"You smell Percival, don't you?"

I listen hard and hear our assistant's kids' Siberian husky snuffling on the other side of the fence, and I look just in time to see his black nose poke through the hole with wiggling nostrils. Upon further listen, I hear Thomas's best friend yelling, "Percival, get back here!"

"Sorry, Nukem!" I pull a plastic lawn chair from the table up to the fence and haul myself up so that I can see the neighbor twins standing on their back porch. "I think she's going into heat again."

"Not that Percy's complaining," Nukem replies, grabbing his sister Nova by the hand and leading her over to the fence. "District Five needs a vet clinic."

"There aren't enough pets for that," I say. We and some of the district's other more wealthy people are the only ones that have pets, save for some scraggly half-strays in the poorer areas. We could probably afford to ship them off somewhere for treatment if they got sick, but it's not worth it to take care of an unnecessary procedure like spaying or neutering.

"We've got plenty of mutts."

"True, but they're disposable; you've got a problem with one, you just grow a new one in a tank."

Nova sighs and bends down to give her beloved Percival a pat on the side. "Sad, isn't it?"

I nod in agreement. It is sad, sad that a district that concerns itself so much with the study of living things doesn't care all that much for their value. Speaking of which: "So, are you ready for the reaping? I see you've got your clothes on."

Nukem's eyes go down to his faded tuxedo and Nova's grass-stained yellow dress in turn. "No one's ever ready, really."

"At least it's your last. After this, you'll both be safe."

"Then we'll just have you to worry about," he says. "But hey, you've only got one entry. Nova and I've got seven."

"That's not so much."

"For District Five, it is," Nova says, startling us both. She does that sometimes. She's smart, smarter than her brother for certain (even he freely admits this), but she lacks his tuned-in nature and common sense. She's always off in her own little world, so much so that people are often surprised when she contributes to the conversation without looking like she's even paying attention.

"Still, just seven slips in a couple thousand. Are you still walking with us?"

Nukem smiles. "Same as always."

For the second time today, I say goodbye on the grounds that I have to get dressed and ready for the reaping and run back into the house with Evangeline in tow.

When I get in, I hear that Mother has moved her frenzied efforts from upstairs to downstairs, as evidenced by the different sound that her high heels make on the tile floor of the kitchen. She's talking to our assistant, who must have come over while I was outside, in a panic because she needs to be at the Justice Building to rehearse the Treaty—the same treaty she's read every year since she became the mayor, before she even met Dad—in thirty minutes whether the family's ready or not. To avoid her, I run upstairs to find that Dad has hung my powder-blue dress with matching shoes and a bow on the bathroom door, and under the threat of Mother's wrath, I put it all on and run downstairs in five minutes.

"Aslan, eat something," Dad says, tapping the box of popped oats on the table.

I shake my head. "I'll probably throw it up later," is my reasoning.

"Honey…"

"Dad…" I say, using the same tone as he did for "honey." That shuts him up, and I must say I'm surprised. Since Mother is so busy with her lucrative mayoral duties, Dad's only obligation is to take care of me and Thomas; with no day job, fatherhood is his only outlet for his naturally strong work ethic. It's not like him to retire so quickly from parenting efforts. _Must be the reaping,_ I figure with a shrug.

"Kevin!" Mother shouts, even though she's already three feet from Dad. "We have to be ready in twenty minutes. Aslan's little friend and my assistant are both here; the least you could do for their sake is put your damn pants on."

Dad sighs as though he is the most henpecked husband in all of District 5—asking him to put on his pants when there are guests over, can you believe it?—and grabs his wadded-up dress pants from the chair next to him. As he's putting them on, he mutters, "You know, once I get these on, I'll be ready. Aslan's ready. Feivel's ready."

"Then what's taking so long?"

"Your son." Before Mother can ask, Dad moves to the bottom of the staircase and calls, "Thomas, get down here!"

"Just a minute!" comes Thomas's muffled reply, the first words I have heard from him all day. "I'm getting dressed."

"But Thomas, _why_?"

"It's reaping day, isn't it?"

"Not for you, it's not," I shout back against my better judgment. Thomas just celebrated his nineteenth birthday last month, which is why my parents are baffled that he's putting so much effort into his appearance anyway. They don't know the real reason; he's not comfortable telling them, but he trusts me and Feivel with all of his personal secrets, so he and I know all too well.

"Are the twins here yet?"

I clear the foyer in two steps to look out our peephole, only to see our sidewalk and beautifully manicured lawn (another product of Dad having too much free time on his hands). Nova and Nukem are out of sight, presumably still at their house. "No," I say.

"Okay, then."

We hear Thomas's footsteps before we see him standing at the top of the staircase, dressed in a crisp night-sky-blue tuxedo with a tie at perfect length around his neck. He's borrowed a pair of Dad's dress shoes, and his blond hair is gelled and crusted into neat little spikes that frame his forehead. With only a muttered "sorry" to Mother and Dad on his way to the kitchen, he pours himself a tall bowl of cereal and sits down to eat. Seeing this, Dad decides to go for a second helping and takes it into the living room to watch the pre-reaping coverage, an action which elicits an, "Aw, man!" from Feivel before he runs upstairs so he won't have to listen to any more smacking. With her work done here, Mother and her assistant leave for the reaping, and I must say I'm glad to be free of her despotism for the time being.

"So, Thomas," I begin with a wry smirk and—I imagine—a twinkle in my eye as I take my seat across from him, "I guess you had a better time than the rest of us this morning."

Thomas's cheek is resting in his hand as he stirs his cereal, looking off past my head into space. "I had a dream about Nova," he says.

I heave an exaggerated sigh and reach out to pat his shoulder. "Oh, dear brother, does that mean I have to do your laundry for you _again_?"

"Not _that_ kind of dream!" He wakes up out of his stupor long enough to knock me across the head as a warning to hush when Dad is still in the house. "I meant a nightmare."

"Reaping nightmare?"

"Yeah. Last few days, actually."

This is a familiar occurrence to both of us. They've happened for about a week before the reaping ever since Nova and Nukem turned twelve, though Thomas frankly has much more at stake with them than I do.

Thomas leans forward, looking to the left and the right to make sure we're the only ones listening, and whispers, "I got this to give to Nova after the reaping." From the pocket of his tuxedo, he pulls out a black velvet box that I can only hope is not a wedding ring, and opens it to reveal a delicate silver (or stainless steel, most likely) necklace with a single black quarter-note pendant hanging from the end. "If there are two things Nova likes, it's shiny trinkets and music, so I figured…"

"It's perfect," I say, but that's not what I'm focused on. Instead, I can't figure out how my nineteen-year-old brother could afford this without revealing to Mother and Dad his secret crush, since they would never let him borrow a large amount of money without asking why. "How long…I mean, how did you get the money for this?"

Thomas smiles, showing off straight white teeth and huge dimples and bright blue eyes that catch and scatter any light in the room. He is dashing, truly, and any girl in the district would be lucky to have him. "Picked up a few extra hours in the lab, did some odd jobs here and there."

"I'm very proud of you, Thomas."

"It wasn't that big a deal," he says, stifling a smile that clearly betrays the opposite. "Do you think Nova will like it?"

"She'll love it."

_Ding-dong._

"They're here!" Thomas bolts out of his chair, leaving his cereal uneaten, and yanks open the door before Dad is even off the couch. I get up and peek out the doorway enough to see Thomas trying to sidestep Nukem, who has taken to teasingly blocking the path to his sister with outstretched arms and a mock scowl. After a few seconds of this, Nukem relents, and Thomas approaches Nova in her threadbare dress as she concentrates on stripping a fallen leaf from its stalk. She loves to do that, always tracking dismembered flora indoors and getting chlorophyll all over her clothing. Thomas thinks it's adorable.

"Nova," he says, taking her free hand, "how are you on this _fine_ reaping morning?"

"Good, good," Nova says, not looking up from the new challenge of stripping the leaf one-handed.

"Are we all ready to go?" Dad asks from the living room, brushing cereal crumbs off his shirt. Hearing this, Feivel scampers down the stairs in his best reaping clothes—a worn red T-shirt, black athletic shorts, socks that may have once been white, and holey tennis shoes—and greets Nova and Nukem with a swift nod and a smile in their direction.

"Guess we're ready," I reply, gesturing down to my blue outfit with the itchy white frills and the scalp-pinching bow. If nothing else, I want to get this over with so I can get out of this stupid dress, which I wouldn't be caught dead wearing at any other time.

"Your shoes are blue," Nova notes. "They're pretty."

"Yeah." I look down at her shoes, a pair of white tennis shoes hot-glued with lace and rhinestones to make them look dressier. "I, uh, I like yours, too. Very utilitarian, very resourceful."

"Blue shoes," she says, her voice picking up a slight singsong cadence. She often does that when she likes a phrase—she latches on and doesn't let go for an indefinite length of time. It's probably the sonority of the double "oo" sound that's causing it here. "Blue shoes, blue shoes."

"Great." Nukem sighs. "I'll be hearing that all day."

"It's not so bad. Actually, I kind of like it. Blue shoes. Blue shoes." Thomas picks up Nova's soft, peachy-white hand in his and they skip out the door, singing in unison about the color of my footwear. Feivel and I follow shortly—minus the chanting, of course—and I look back to see Dad and Nukem exchange glances, shrug, and start walking.

We take the same route to get to the district square as I take to get to the Maloneys' house. Dad and Nukem are chatting about what I presume to be father-and-son things in the back—sports performances and suchlike, things that Dad's actual son doesn't spend too much time on—and Thomas and Nova are skipping merrily along in front, so close that their moist post-rain shoe prints are intertwining on the sidewalk, lacy dress-tennis-shoe zigzags mingling with flat loafer ovals.

Their chatter serves as white noise to prevent me and Feivel from having to create our own with conversation. We instead stroll along in amiable silence as I contemplate my wonderful big brother and the love of his life, making mental Punnett squares to figure out what their children might look like one day. His children most likely wouldn't be blond; the blond allele is recessive to most alleles for her dark hair, although it's not as recessive as my red hair, which he is a carrier of. Her green eyes are more recessive than his blue eyes, but Dad has green eyes, so perhaps he's a carrier of that, too. Practically everyone is a carrier of one or the other, as Five is almost exclusively a fair-haired, light-eyed district, so perhaps…

"What was with you and Thomas in the kitchen earlier?"

Abruptly yanked from my thoughts into decidedly less romantic territory, I turn my head to address Feivel with widened eyes and a mouth agape in feigned ignorance. "Feivel, what are you talking about?"

Feivel narrows his eyes and pushes against my shoulder with the palm of his hand, profoundly unimpressed. "You know quite well what I'm talking about. The conversation you had in the kitchen, with the dream thing and the comment about having to do his laundry for him. What was that?"

Did he really hear that? I sigh and shake my head at the ground. He doesn't miss a thing, that boy. "You're too young to understand, Feivel," I say, throwing in a wry chuckle to brush him off with a little more humor. "Just know that when I don't tell you, it's to protect your innocence."

"I'm practically your family, Aslan; I have a right to know what goes on between you and your brother." Feivel is indignant now. I don't want to have to explain this to him just because I'm not sure I _can_, but he's not one to let these things go.

"It was just a joke, Feivel. It's not important to you. You'll understand when you're older."

"Bet you I won't be that much older," he says, crossing his arms. "My class is starting Sexual Education this week."

At this, I stop in my tracks for a moment and blink at him in surprise. This is a new development. "Sex Ed, in fifth year?"

"Well, yeah, that's when all kids take it. You did, didn't you?"

"I know, but…" I pick up my pace and rejoin him in silent contemplation. Ten years old. Was that really when I took it? That seems much too young to know about something as potentially scarring as the complexities of sex. Of course, this being District 5, kids know from a very young age how a male and female of the same species reproduce, and that's essentially what we learned about when I was ten, except as it related to us as human beings ("Human Relations" was what they called it). We learned about pregnancy and protection and sexually transmitted diseases and unrolled cheap condoms onto phallic foodstuffs. We never delved any deeper, and that was just fine by me. But two years have passed between my time and Feivel's, and if comparing his homework to my own over the years has been any indication, they have certainly expanded and improved upon the curriculum since I was in Sex Ed.

I breathe a sigh that breaks the steady backbeat of our footsteps as we near the district square. My little friend is growing up, and all too soon.

"They say they're going to be teaching us more about the emotional aspect of sex, not just the mechanical."

"Oh, Panem. Feivel, please don't say things like that around me."

"What? Of all people, I thought my best friend would be the one I could talk with about this."

"I didn't even know there _was_ an emotional aspect to sex," I say, absently extending my foot to kick a paper wad on the ground. Even at age twelve, two years after taking the course, sex as something that I may someday _participate_ in is still the furthest thing from my mind, and even further from my understanding beyond the simple mechanics and reproductive results. I have heard every slang and technical term in the book from Thomas and the twins; I appreciate and laugh uproariously at the jokes my classmates make; I know that it's (apparently) something that people enjoy, simultaneously the product and producer of healthy relationships, but it's more the academic knowledge of this fact than the true understanding of what sex really _is_.

"Me, neither," Feivel says, possibly in commiseration. "I can't imagine one, come to think of it."

"All I know about sex is that a sperm fuses with an egg"—these are the only terms I can use with my best friend without blushing—"and sometimes, a baby results. What could be so emotional about that?"

"Nothing at all. Unless you were emotional over the kid or something."

"Well, I never want to have kids," I say with a growing smile, suddenly very grateful to have a best friend who actually _gets it_. "I mean, I'm a kid and I have no idea how my dad handles me, and Mother doesn't handle me at all, so…."

"I feel quite the same way. When you're poor, having kids is just an investment in heartbreak."

"So there really is no reason for either of us to have sex."

"Exactly."

I will marry Feivel Maloney one day. I just know it.

* * *

To all those of you who read through that, thanks for your time. Seriously, my first chapters are always rather long and clumpy, big chunks of backstory everywhere and too much explanation and inner monologue. Just be glad I decided to make the reaping its own separate chapter, which I've started on already. The next chapters will be shorter, I swear (and that's where we meet Wiress, the person I originally wanted to write about). Granted, I promise that on all my stories, but I've never gotten past the first few chapters, so you've never gotten to see that come to fruition. But I have a good feeling about it this time.

And, as always, please review.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes:** I remember promising that Chapter 2 would be up in "a few days" in my previous update. It should usually be understood that when I say "a few days," it probably means "a few months." I'm trying to get better about that, but I'll probably always be a somewhat slow updater.

As a further note, the reaping and the goodbyes were supposed to be a single chapter, but they ended up being really long when combined, so I decided to split them up. This means nothing to you—all six of you—who are reading this except that I have a slight leg-up on the next chapter.

* * *

**Chapter 2**

"Name and age?"

"Aslan Klein. T-twelve. My, uh, my first year."

"Sign here." The registrar Peacekeeper hands me the touchscreen sign-in tablet, which is chained to the table so that light-fingered district children won't be tempted. I grab the similarly attached stylus in my left hand and sign my name in carefully wrought print, but it ends up coming out as thin and shaky as my spoken voice.

"Is that okay? Will they be able to read—"

"Next!"

Dad sweeps me away by my shoulders, pulling me so fast and so hard that I'm nearly pitched down to the ground. Of all things, that's what finally does it. The corners of my eyes prickle hot with tears as a flood of histamine gives me the telltale knot in my throat and begins to close my nasal passages.

"Honey, what's wrong?" Dad readjusts his arm so that he's hugging me rather than pulling me, using his free hand to tilt my head up so he can look me in the eye, but I can't answer. I'm afraid that if I open my mouth, I won't be able to stop crying.

Thomas and Nova and Nukem set about trying to console me at once. Thomas tells me that the first year is always rough but I'll get through it; Nukem pats my back and Nova wipes the unformed tears from the corners of my eyes; but in the end, it's Feivel who comes to the rescue by hugging me and letting me release a single sob into his shoulder so I can speak again.

"Nothing. It's just that…being asked to sign my name…having to register…." I sigh. I'm much too smart for this, too strong to be carrying on like a baby. "What I mean to say is, this is all getting very real, very fast. I just never considered before now that I might actually be in danger."

"You're not," Thomas says. He clamps his hands down onto my shoulders and bends down to my level, his blue eyes locked on my own. His assurance comes again, sounding much like he looks now—a little too desperate, a little too firm, a little too forceful. "You're _not_."

"Easy for you to say."

"You only have one entry."

"It's still enough."

"Both of you, stop it," Dad barks. "This is a stressful time for all of us, and I won't have this kind of fighting making it worse. We have to just go to our places and hope for the best."

Thomas and I exchange glances, apologies, and too-strong hugs before I give the same to an equally nervous—and more justifiably so—Nova and Nukem. Dad tries and fails to disguise the worry in his voice when he tells me he loves me, and Feivel—stoic, fearless Feivel—is trembling openly in my arms. With all adult or semi-adult eyes on me, I give him a final kiss on the cheek for comfort, providing Thomas with the courage to do the same for Nova. Nukem, for once, does not object.

Nova and Nukem go their separate ways to the eighteen-year-old sections, and I walk alone down the middle of the crowd into my prime front-row spot as a twelve-year-old girl, where my friend Cobalt is there to greet me.

"There's your mama," she says, pointing up to the stage and wearing her perpetual grin. "Wave at her; see if she waves back."

"I don't think so."

"Why not?"

"Thomas always told me that he's tried to wave at her every year since he was twelve. She always got mad at him for it."

"Yeah, but did she wave back?"

I laugh and look up to the spot on the stage where my mother has taken a seat next to our two remaining victors, nineteen-year-old Theodore and twenty-three-year-old Serina. In front of them, our not-at-all-stupidly named escort, Dizzy Benson, is standing at the microphone between two reaping balls, prattling on in true Capitol fashion.

"My, my, what a _lovely_ day," she says with a glassy grin and a certain tightness to her eyes, the kind of expression that's plastered onto the face of every escort and could shatter if you were to so much as tap it. "You must all be so excited to be here!"

Neither of those things is true, of course. The day is hot and overcast and the humidity keeps our uncomfortable reaping clothes bound to our skin. Everyone in the crowd is silent and hollow-eyed, most of us playing for very high stakes. Those that aren't are making up for it by putting everything they own into bets on who will be reaped. Most eyes are on poor Gregory Zilenski, who is eighteen years old and has taken out tesserae for himself, his parents, and each of his seventeen siblings every year since he was twelve. That totals up to two hundred and forty-seven slips out of maybe two thousand for the boys, giving him an approximate one in thirteen chance of being reaped. It's relatively low, but compared to the standard one in four hundred, it's safe to say it sucks to be Gregory Zilenski on reaping day.

For a moment, Dizzy casts off her plasticized expression (I was beginning to wonder if she could) and says with an air of solemnity, "Before our Treaty of Treason is read, I would like to acknowledge that the year following this past Quarter Quell has been a rough one, seeing as we have lost two beloved victors in a short timeframe: Miss Blaize Fincher of District Twelve and District Five's very own Palladin Hawkins. Their spirits will forever be honored. May they rest in peace."

Even this speech, the Capitol's version of a heartfelt eulogy for a past tribute, settles uneasily with the crowd. Dizzy has neglected to mention the cause of both of these deaths, which could probably be written off as old age—defined in the lower districts at about sixty-five—to someone who didn't know better. Blaize, the victor of the fifth Hunger Games, at least had the decorum to wait until she had procured another District 12 victor to drink herself dead, but this was not the case with Palladin, who instead dragged his vice out for the forty-three years following his victory before keeling over just two months ago. The eligible children may talk about how nervous they are to face the possibility of being mentored by a couple of inexperienced kids not much older than them, but they know that the older victor's experience wouldn't have mattered. His mind was pickled beyond all help.

"And now, I shall turn the microphone over to Mayor Klein with the Treaty of Treason."

"Now's your chance," Cobalt whispers as Mother takes her place at the microphone.

"I'm not that stupid," I say, but I do notice something strange about my mother's demeanor. She is not staring straight ahead like usual, focused on the task at hand so hard that the world around her is blotted out of her perception. Her eyes instead flit along the center line of the crowd, where I am now looking over my shoulder. Dad and Thomas are each holding one of Feivel's hands, and the Maloneys, having arrived too late to hug me good luck, are behind them with their hands on their son's shoulders.

_Will they be picking him up?_ I think. _No, no—they said after choir practice._

Feivel's eyes catch mine, and I see that he's been crying. He mouths something indistinct at this distance—it could be "I love you" (wishful thinking); it could be "good luck," but the message of fear juxtaposed with desperate well-wishing is clear.

"Feivel," I mouth back, "I'll be okay."

And it's true. I will be okay. At three o'clock this afternoon, I will be joining him on the risers set up in the hall of the Justice Building—District 5's acoustic sweet spot—for choir rehearsal. He will go to the soprano section, Nova will assume her place as a mezzo, and Cobalt will join me in the alto section. Our director, Boomer, will hand us the new music he has promised to us, and as we take a cursory sight-reading, I will reach across the invisible line between the altos and sopranos and grab his hand if our placement permits, just as I always do. Everything will be normal again.

Mother finishes the treaty and goes back to her seat, probably kicking herself for losing her focus, and Dizzy steps up to the microphone once more. "And without further ado, we begin," she says. "As always, ladies first."

Dizzy grabs the handle of the girls' reaping ball and turns it one, two, three, four times as the relatively sparse slips flit and rustle far more than another district's slips would. Our population is small enough that few people have to take out tesserae, and even fewer actually dare. That's why the kids who have the largest, poorest families are so at risk. Their slips can number in the triple digits, and only rarely do anyone else's rise above the singles. Dizzy plunges her hand deep into the belly of the reaping ball, shuffles her fingers, and pulls out a slip. People stop talking. They stop moving. They stop breathing. The gamblers are crossing their fingers, many of them having set their sights on the oldest Zilenski daughter, Valerie, whom we can all hear sobbing in the back of the congregation. Nova is probably back there comforting her. She and Valerie are good friends.

One thing about Dizzy that is simultaneously good and bad is that she doesn't make a big show of drawing and unfolding the slip little by little, trying to drum up suspense. She simply does it and rattles off the name in two seconds, like ripping off a bandage. But those two seconds are enough for everything to come down on me at once as the tension reaches its peak. Cobalt is suddenly overwhelmed and clings to my side as my heartbeat quickens and pulses loud enough to drown out the keening wails of Valerie and her siblings as the slip is drawn and the name is read and it's _not me_.

_Not me!_ I think, welcoming the ballistic grin that springs onto my face as the people behind me—the tribute's family and friends—begin to cry. _I'm safe._ _Safe! Safe for a whole year._ Cobalt frees me from her grip, and I turn around and hug her, knowing that it wasn't her, either. "We're okay, Cobalt!" I whisper, mad with joy. "It wasn't us!"

I wait for Cobalt to return my embrace and smile at me, but instead, she pushes me away and meets my eyes. Hers are glassy with tears. Seeing that, I get the sense that I've just put my foot in my mouth.

"Was it someone you know?"

Mutely, Cobalt nods.

"Oh, Cobalt." I take her hand in mine and sigh. I'm such an idiot. "I'm so sorry."

Cobalt shakes her head. She grabs my other hand and squeezes them both hard as she drills her eyes into mine, willing me to understand something. "Aslan, don't you realize?"

My heartbeat picks up. "Was it me?"

In response, Cobalt puts her hand over my head and directs my line of sight to the front of the crowd in time to see a waifish, black-haired girl in a grass-stained yellow dress and bejeweled tennis shoes make her way onto the stage.

"Hello, darling! You must be Nova," Dizzy says. She holds the microphone up to Nova's tearful face. "Now tell us, dear, how old are you?"

"Eighteen," Nova says in tones that sound much younger. She is shivering, vulnerable and exposed in her threadbare dress, and I am in shock, wondering how I could have missed the name of my friend and the love of my older brother's life. I imagine it was a disappointment to the gamblers and just as much of a surprise to our friends, who know that Nova only has the bare minimum number of slips. I'm not even sure it was really _her_. Maybe there was a mishearing. Our Nova Schafer is not the only eligible Nova in the district. It could have been Nova Petri or Nova Zilenski or Nova Shay.

_Nova Shay, that must have been it,_ I think, grasping at straws. _That sounds like Nova Schafer._

Mother's assistant is already on the stage, sobbing. Thomas is ripping a path down the center line of the crowd, and Dad and Feivel and his parents are making their way down behind him. Behind me, I hear Nukem's voice shouting, pleading, she's my twin sister, let me go talk to her, but the mob of white-clad people in the back of the reaping crowd tells me that the Peacekeepers are stopping him. Families are okay, but they won't let any other eligibles up there, not unless they intend to volunteer.

It is then that I get an idea, an idea that must be carried out immediately before the more selfish sense of self-preservation prevails.

"I have to…"

"What was that, Aslan?" Cobalt asks, sounding unusually gentle, sympathetic. I turn my body so that I can put a firm hand on her shoulder.

"Stay here, Cobalt." I remove my hand and lift the heavy velvet rope in front of me, bending my knees to duck under it.

"What are you doing?"

"She's my friend. I have to go up there." I don't listen to Cobalt's protests and take the brute force of the two Peacekeepers who stop me in stride, showing no fear.

"I can't let you up there," one says.

"I have to get up there; she's my friend," I reply, making my voice and my thoughts very clear even though I'm breaking apart inside.

"I can't let you up there," the same Peacekeeper says again, so roughly that I almost want to go back. "Look, if you were going to volunteer, that would be different—"

"Let me go!" With a burst of strength that surprises even me, I twist and break free and don't even bother taking the stairs up to the stage; I have the advantage of a running start that allows me to clear the threshold in a way that a lumbering suit-clad Peacekeeper cannot. And all at once, I find myself standing next to my family and Feivel and Nova and Dizzy, who don't even have time to react as I see the Peacekeepers running up the short steps to pull me away by force and I know I haven't got much time to stay up here and I have _exactly one chance_ to do this right and I need to make it count.

"I volunteer," I say, hearing my disembodied voice echo into the microphone and reverberate around the Square such that I don't even realize it was me who said it at first. For a moment, I look around the stage for this brave soul who has just saved my friend—the love of my brother's life—from death until I see my face on every surrounding screen and understand what has just happened.

"What was that?" Dizzy asks, raising one red-and-purple eyebrow at this plucky twelve-year-old kid in front of her—_me_—who has just signed her life away on an impulse. She holds her mic in front of my face, and I find my words again:

"You heard me. I volunteer as the female tribute of District Five."

"Are you sure about that?" Dizzy's voice falls low into tones not intended for the microphone to pick up. "This is a very big decision you're making."

_What in the hell am I doing?_ "Yes, I'm sure."

"Aslan, you can't do this," Dad says, pulling me back into his grasp by my shoulders. I'm wriggling, trying to escape, but it's no use. "She's my daughter, and she's not volunteering."

"But Dad, what about Nova?"

"If she wants to volunteer, she can," Dizzy says.

"She's twelve years old! She can't make this kind of decision for herself."

"This isn't about me," I shout, unheard. "This is about our friend."

"I'm sorry, sir, but I'm afraid you have no control over the situation. This is entirely between her and the chosen tribute."

Dad lets me go as all eyes shift from me to Nova, the final holder of the verdict. I'm a little unfamiliar with the protocol for volunteering (it doesn't happen all that often in Five), but I seem to remember that if the selected tribute wants to stay, then they don't have to give up their position to any volunteers.

"Nova?" I ask in a voice that's much too young for me, much too small, a contrast to the bold voice in which I said I would volunteer. My adrenaline is fading, and part of me hopes that Nova will reject my attempt and assume her position as the female District 5 tribute. Instead, she stands in wordless shock, her arms wrapped around her shoulders and her eyes on the floor.

"Dear, if you don't answer, then she can take your place by default," Dizzy says.

"Nova!" Thomas is in his own personal hell. He jostles Nova's shoulders, trying to get her to give some response, any at all. "Nova, this is a no-win situation. It's either you or my sister. I just want to make sure what happens is what you want."

Nova is still silent. She begins to tremble.

"Aslan, please don't do this." Feivel wraps his arms around my ribcage and stares up into my eyes. He looks like he's going to cry. "You can step down if you want."

"So you want this to happen to Nova?" I snap. "To Thomas? To us?"

"No," he says. "I just don't want it to happen to you."

"Is this your final answer?" Dizzy asks. She leans over to me and murmurs in tones too low for the microphone, "This is a big decision you're making. Are you sure you want to do this?"

"I'm sure."

"Very well." Dizzy exhales long and soft through her nose, then picks up her smile and proclaims to the audience, "It looks as though we have a volunteer!"

The crowd is stony, saucer-eyed. The only noise comes from the creaking of the stage and Feivel's background whimpers.

"What is your name, child?"

"Aslan," I say into the microphone. "Uh, Klein."

Dizzy turns her head to my mother, who is watching with the same teary expression as Thomas and Dad and Feivel, but has not risen from her seat. "Is she yours?"

Mother nods.

"Why, you never told me you had a daughter!" Dizzy says. "I knew you had a son, but I knew nothing about this one."

"I never saw it fit to mention her," Mother replies.

Dizzy's voice falls low again. "Says a lot about your parenting," she mutters in my direction, and against all odds, I smile. "Now, Miss Klein, tell us, how old are you?"

"Twelve and a half."

"My, my! I don't think we've ever had a volunteer so young! You're a very brave little girl, aren't you?"

"Thank you."

At this point, Feivel decides he can't take it anymore and throws himself onto the stage to grab me around my waist, wailing. "No, no," he says. "You can't take her."

"Feivel, now is not the time," I hiss.

"Oh, dear." Dizzy steps in to pry Feivel's arms open and remove me from his grasp. "It's all right, son. It's an honor to be a tribute in the Hunger Games. This is brave, noble endeavor on the part of your—what is she to you? Is she your big sister?" She turns to Mother. "Don't tell me you have another one you haven't mentioned."

All of District 5 rolls their eyes, including me and everyone else on the stage. A blond father and a red-haired mother, producing a black-haired son? Ludicrous. "Genetically improbable," I tell her. "Two light-haired parents probably won't be able to produce a child with dark hair, especially considering that they have two light-haired children already. Dark hair is dominant; light hair is recessive."

"Then what is he?"

"My best friend."

"_Aww_." Dizzy takes a moment to turn and smile at the crowd. "All right, let's get a strapping gentleman up here to match this beautiful young lady!"

The boys, who have been holding their breath for the past several minutes with this whole volunteering ordeal going on, all tense up and shrink back as one big mass in their shared dread. Dizzy reaches into the reaping ball and Gregory Zilenski starts to sink to his knees as the name is read: "Sergio Volkov."

All the boys sigh. It wasn't them. Knowing this, they turn their heads and point their eyes to the lucky loser, though I can't pick him out myself. There are no telltale sobs or shouts from him or his family, whoever they may be. I have to wait until the front of the crowd parts to allow a boy twice my size to come through and thunder onto the stage, silent, seething, glaring at the world.

I stagger backward as he steps up to the microphone. He's bigger than Dizzy, dark-haired with creamy brown skin, knotted and roped with muscle on his visible extremities. Feivel, who has been waiting at the side of the stage with my family, starts to cry.

"Oh, my. Looks like I got my wish," Dizzy says, looking this Sergio character up and down, at once impressed and startled. "You must be Sergio."

The boy nods, a single short jerk of his neck and no change in expression.

"How old are you, son?"

"Just turned twelve, ma'am."

_Younger than me,_ I think. There is no way this kid can be twelve. He's as big as a much older teenager and he has the voice of a grown man. He looks as though he could attack me at any moment, and what scares me most is that in a week, he'll be expected and encouraged to do just that.

"So, Sergio, how do you feel about being chosen to represent your district in the Hunger Games?"

Sergio shrugs. "I don't care."

"Really?" Dizzy pushes on his shoulder with her palm. His glare deepens and his arm muscles ripple at the touch. "Not even a little bit?"

"I'm not in the mood for small talk," he says.

Dizzy nods to the audience, her hollowed-out grin still stuck on her face. That must start to hurt after a while. "Everyone, the tributes of District Five!" she says, holding her arm out to us. "All right, you two. Shake hands."

I extend my hand to him, and he takes it, glaring at me all the while. I give my usual businesslike arm-pump and friendly smile, though it comes out as more of a pained wince. This kid is practically crushing my hand in his grip, and I don't think he's trying to, either.

* * *

**Closing Notes**: I have nothing to say, really, except that I kindly ask you for your reviews. Also, I don't really like the way this chapter ends, but everyone I've screened it by (my parents, my kid brother, and a few school friends) says it's okay, so such is life.


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